Re: Starch and sugar

vivian maxine » September 7th, 2015, 11:50 am wrote:Biowizard put it all well in a nutshell. Just one addition if I may. Nutritionists tell diabetics to watch not the sugar level but the carbohydrates level when trying to keep the total down. Carbohydrates include both sugar and starch. Personally, I watch both. it is an education in itself to see how much sugar is in some processed foods we buy. I forget what I showed my neighbor the other day but it amounted to six teaspoonsful of sugar in a single serving of some beverage I'd bought. A single cookie can show up with two or even three teaspoonsful of sugar.

And P.S. - those starches can add up faster than you'd believe. Yes it is a healthier way to get your carbs but it is also a very fast way to get far too many carbs. I sometimes despair of staying within the recommended limit.

Watch the labels. You'll be amazed. Thank you, Bio for the summary. Always good to review.

The glycemic index is a boon to diabetics looking to educate themselves on how different foods and produce affect their blood sugar ... look it up sometime.

As others have already said, the bulk of the carbs in your diet should be kept to a modest level overall, whole grain wherever possible, and include a spectrum of different glycemic indexes (preferrably biased towards the lower and more complex end of the table). If you're stuck with a meal that's skewed towards simple carbs, you can help buffer it's effects somewhat by limiting the portion size and then supplementing with a modest amount of protein ... even if it's only a palmful of nuts. It helps.

Re: Starch and sugar

wolfhnd » 10 Sep 2015 02:32 am wrote:One of the things that I always find interesting is the assumption that "natural" product are safer than man made ones. A prejudice perhaps responsible for the rejection of GM foods.

LSD is an example of how small the amount of a natural toxin may be required to have significant effects and it was first derived from a relatively harmless fungus.

Here is an example of how food can be contaminated with very small amounts of chemicals with interesting consequences.

Claviceps purpurea, cause of ergotism

"However as recently as 1951, in Pont-St. Esprit, a small town in France, there was an outbreak of the disease. First a bit of background-- in Europe it is the custom to buy fresh bread nearly every day. Much more civilized than our American custom of buying bread with preservatives in it that allow it to last several weeks. In this small town there was only one bakery and everyone bought bread from it. Strange things started happening. People developed a burning sensation in their limbs, began to hallucinate that they could fly, did strange things to their dogs with forks and in general acted weirdly. This outbreak is chronicled in a marvelous (but out of print) book called "The day of St Anthony's Fire" by John Grant Fuller. "

"There have been various attempts to explain those witch trials. None of them are more logical and interesting than the hypothesis of ergot poisoning, caused by Claviceps purpurea. The behavior was not identified as witchcraft until 1691, and this was just the beginning of the problem. Many people were sent to trial and often convicted and imprisoned. By September 1692 twenty men and women had been put to death for their crimes. All of the accused had similar symptoms: manic melancholia, psychosis, delirium, crawling sensations of the skin, vertigo, headaches, vomiting and diarrhea. All of these are symptoms of ergot poisoning, and it is likely that at list the initial hysteria was started by Claviceps purpurea infecting the grains of rye. This was chronicled in an article (Science 192:21-26, 1976) by Linnda R. Caporael called "Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem?" She provides compelling, although circumstantial, evidence that the Salem witch trials coincided with a weather period that would have produced large quantities of ergot on rye, which was grown in the lowlands in that area. Here are some other links to learn more about the Salem Witch trials:"

One more thing to consider is how complex nutrition is and how small changes in foods may effect people. We all know that some people react to various common foods such as peanuts, see food etc. causing severe illness. What may be safe for one person may not be for other including the way refined sugars and other common foods are processed by individuals. There is anecdotal evidence that some people are sensitive to the tiny amounts of BPA released from plastic bottles while other people are not effected at all. The list of possibly harmful items in our diets is endless and specific to your own system and could not possibly be tested for. Everyone needs to be aware of how their body reacts to various foods and not take other peoples experience as an absolute guide.

wolfhnd I had missed your post until now. Good to see you back old man.

Yes, the assumption that everything natural is safe is, well a very stupid assumption. Venom is natural, yes?

Clearly, there's no easy generalization. Except perhaps when you're comparing highly processed vs wholefood nutrients. In general, the less processed the food is, the better. The simplest argument for that is our bodies didn't evolve to consume highly processed foods for the majority of our existence. So our biology is still learning to cope with this new "stress", which you add on the top of the stress of "excess" enabled by industrialization. It sounds like a knee jerk over application of evolutionary biology, but it's true. Cats don't fair well on a grass diet. We don't fair too well on an all meat diet.

And yes, dietary requirements, like any biological trait, are highly variable (within a viable range) across individuals. That's why they're described in terms of population means (or medians). Nature equipped us with aversion instincts to avoid (and strongly dislike), for example, things that we're allergic to. Unfortunately, things that can still harm us but don't elicit acute violent reactions will fly under that radar. That's why it's good to know a thing or two about our biochemistry and have long-term studies about the benefits or risks of this or that.

Finally, how are GM foods unnatural? DNA is natural. Genes are natural. The recipient cells are natural. :]

Re: Starch and sugar

Bio I really liked your idea of buying a blood glucose meter. If you really want to know how something is effecting you and not just a generalized population you need to experiment on you. I think keeping a diary of how different foods effect you would be useful. The question is how to detect those things that as you say "fly under the radar"?

Re: Starch and sugar

wolfhnd » 10 Sep 2015 03:56 pm wrote:Bio I really liked your idea of buying a blood glucose meter. If you really want to know how something is effecting you and not just a generalized population you need to experiment on you. I think keeping a diary of how different foods effect you would be useful. The question is how to detect those things that as you say "fly under the radar"?

You can't test for everything, so it's OK for most things to go with the population mean approximations, especially for strong health trends. You may be able to tolerate more refined sugars than someone else, but it will still always be better for >you< to moderate your intake. Some common sense will go a long way.

I did the experiment myself and found that my blood glucose returns to baseline faster than average. That was several years ago when I was doing a lot more running (though I don't know if the two things are related anyway).

Re: Starch and sugar

vivian maxine » Thu Sep 10, 2015 10:11 am wrote:My favorite quote (invented by me): Chocolate is the only food that the FDA has not said causes cancer. So, you eat three Hershey Big Blocks a day and buy lots of Hershey stock.

And, do skip the broccoli, for heaven's sake!!!!!

My hepatologist told me I have early stages liver disease and should drink lots of coffee and eat plenty of dark chocolate, darker the better. It was like a scene from Brer Rabbit.

Re: Starch and sugar

CanadysPeak » September 10th, 2015, 5:08 pm wrote:My hepatologist told me I have early stages liver disease and should drink lots of coffee and eat plenty of dark chocolate, darker the better. It was like a scene from Brer Rabbit.

NAFLD or NASH ? Same here.

I'm surprised he said up the coffee, because caffine is an alkaloid, which i thought was liver intensive.

Many alkaloids have pharmacological action (among them caffeine and theobromine, which is the analog that is contained in chocolate).

Pharmacological actions are generally exerted at below micromolar concentrations (consider that to achieve 1 µM concentration in the 42 liters of water of a 70 kg man you need just 42 micromoles, which correspond, for an alkaloid with molecular weight 100-1000, to some 4-40 milligrams).Such quantities (mg or tens of mg) of a substance won't in any case constitute a burden for hepatic metabolism.

It is true that the pharmacological action of some drugs may specifically intoxicate hepatic metabolic enzymes or damage hepatic cells, but that is not a particularly common effect.

Here we were talking about glucose. Glucose in blood is about 1 mg/ml, i.e. about 42 grams in body fluids (not considering the stores of glucose, polymerized as glycogen in the liver and muscles): we are talking about quantities 1000 times greater. And the same is generally true for dietary components, which we assume in grams to hundred of grams quantities.

In simple words, tiny concentrations (and quantities) are sufficient for pharmacological action. In talking about foods - and metabolic burden on the liver - we are referring to much higher (some 1000x) quantities.

Re: Starch and sugar

Neuro, I presume you know my posting of grotesque sugary excess was whimsical.

I find oils and nuts very efficacious in lowering glycemic load, and preventing craving-snacking between meals. Some people, if they have a diverticulum, may find nuts irritating, so would probably do better with just good oils. Chocolate...straight cocoa is great, the theobromine is a less jangly high than caffeine and you can sweeten with agave nectar which is lower glycemic than sugar.

Canady, never been to Minot. But I've thought, "why not Minot?" The deep-fat fried snickers bars you can get anywhere in the grainbelt.

Re: Starch and sugar

I find oils and nuts very efficacious in lowering glycemic load, and preventing craving-snacking between meals. Some people, if they have a diverticulum, may find nuts irritating, so would probably do better with just good oils. Chocolate...straight cocoa is great, the theobromine is a less jangly high than caffeine and you can sweeten with agave nectar which is lower glycemic than sugar.

Canady, never been to Minot. But I've thought, "why not Minot?" The deep-fat fried snickers bars you can get anywhere in the grainbelt.

Deep fried Snicker's bars? You are kidding, are you not? Ugh. :-( Now, fry bread - I'll take that. But a deep fried candy bar? To each his own.

Re: Starch and sugar

CanadysPeak » September 10th, 2015, 5:08 pm wrote:My hepatologist told me I have early stages liver disease and should drink lots of coffee and eat plenty of dark chocolate, darker the better. It was like a scene from Brer Rabbit.

NAFLD or NASH ? Same here.

I'm surprised he said up the coffee, because caffine is an alkaloid, which i thought was liver intensive.

BTW, metformin can help somewhat.

Yes, that's the diagnosis, meaning something like, "beats me." They really don't have a good handle on it, and, when you throw in my other difficulties, the transplant guy told me, "Don't worry; your liver won't be the thing that kills you." I still don't know if that's good news or bad news. Anyway, I can't drink more than a few cups of coffee a day without going into tachycardia, so that sort of evens things out. The liver guy did insist on a minimum of 80% cacao on the chocolate, so I'm not eating great blocks of it. Usually the only high number I can find in our stores is the 92 % and an ounce of that at a time does me nicely, thank you.

Re: Starch and sugar

CanadysPeak » September 10th, 2015, 9:29 pm wrote:.. insist on a minimum of 80% cacao on the chocolate, so I'm not eating great blocks of it. Usually the only high number I can find in our stores is the 92 % and an ounce of that at a time does me nicely, thank you.

I have a 2.5 kg bag Callebaut 811NV callets in my freezer (54.5%) ... great as is, but also works great for brownies and hot chocolate and other uses. I get it through a restaurant supply warehouse.

I actually prefer their 60% and 70% callets, but they recently dropped the 2.5 kg size and only sell the callets in 10 kg bags, which is waaaay too much chocolate for a homebody like me. A 2.5 kg bag usually lasts me at least a year.

They offer some single origin chocolates in 2.5 kg bags that look very good, but I've never seen them in the warehouse I visit.

Cocoa content above 85% starts to get too bitter for me ... I seem to like 70%ish the best, across most brands. Don't like milk chocolate, and I like white chocolate even less.

Re: Starch and sugar

During the 1930s and 1940s, there was an ‘old wives’ tale as I was growing up that if we used too much sugar, we would develop ‘sugar diabetes’. It is not an old wives tale any more.

I notice that no one has mentioned the views of a researching dentist who toured the backblocks of the world for 10 years in the 1930s, comparing the bone, teeth and general health of people living in the outback areas of the world, compared with populations who lived close to main ports. His theory was that people living in areas remote from seaside towns would not have access to refined sugar and refined flour and would have to survive as hunter/gatherers or else grow and process their own food. His name was Weston Price and the book was titled Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.

His aim appeared to be to identify physically healthy people in the world and find out if diet per se had anything to do with their health. Statistics were not available in his day, but his book presents a convincing amount of anecdotal evidence that a diet, consisting predominantly of refined sugar and flour, results in very poor bone and tooth development in children, as well as a susceptibility to diseases such as tuberculosis. Those who received ample food as hunter/gatherers or as self-supporting farmers without refined sugar and flour appeared to be in remarkable health.

The main message appeared to be to eat complex carbohydrates (whole grain meals as cakes, biscuits and bread), as well as animal protein and fats.

Assuming he was correct about the carbohydrate aspect, the question is “why?” As others have pointed out in this thread, there is a difference in the time it takes to digest glucose, sucrose, refined flour and whole grain meals. Our ancestors for the last 40000 years at least, have eaten whole grain meals and our digestive and metabolic processes have evolved to handle these. So is it possible that many of us have not evolved with enough insulin production to handle high surges of blood glucose associated with diets high in refined sugar and flour (ptyalin is a very efficient amylase)?

With whole grain meals, we have to first digest the husks of each grain before our digestive enzymes can break down the ‘flour’ within. We don’t experience high surges of blood glucose with whole grain. We appear to have evolved to handle that type of carbohydrate diet.

There has to be a theoretical limit to the amount of insulin we can produce at any given time to handle surges of high blood glucose concentrations associated with diets of the type humorously supplied by Braininvat. Is it possible that people with ‘sweet tooths’ could reach a stage where insulin production is unable to keep pace with these high concentrations and that blood glucose concentrations exceed urine overflow levels? And is it then possible that prolonged high blood glucose concentrations can, by chemical Mass Action, produce glycation of vital proteins such as cell wall Insulin Receptors and, in the case of children, Bone Growth Hormone receptors? Glyco-proteins can no longer act as hormone receptors.

Even if this is not the final definitive story, we do need a theory to explain why a disease such as Diabetes 2 is associated with so many other tissue failures, eg eye, kidney and other peripheral circulation disorders.

Re: Starch and sugar

As regards your final point, type II diabetes generally is not a stand-alone disease. The causes and the pathogenesis (the way the disease develops) are in most cases quite complex.

And I would feel rather confident in stating that glucose absolutely is not the whole story.A number of other hormonal as well as metabolic factors come into play. Notice that one can well look at insulin as the hormone in charge of lowering blood sugar, but in considering insulin resistence one must be reminded that its actions are more complex, its receptor initiates an intracellular transduction cascade that results in modulation of gene expression (and it is not only glucose transporters on the cell membrane).

However, it is true that high blood glucose per se may be toxic: for example, those cells that actively uptake glucose - such as neurons - may undergo a rise of intracellular glucose concentration. This tends to stimulate cell respiration, which uses glucose as fuel and which, when unbalanced, tends to produce higher than normal levels of reactive oxygen species, free radicals, that may damage cell proteins and membranes, and lead to cell suffering and death (particularly so for neurons).

Re: Starch and sugar

Remember though that simple sugars weren't completely absent from our ancestors diet (fruits, honey, etc). They were just never available in the amounts we can access today. That's possibly why our ancestors evolved to covet them, and it's so hard for us now to keep ourselves from constantly overdosing on them. Same thing with animal fat.

Re: Starch and sugar

vivian maxine » 12 Sep 2015 08:31 am wrote:That's all very well, doogles but, whenever I hear such stories I want to ask why we outlive these oh-so-healthy ancestors. They never seem to mention that in their reports.

Re: Starch and sugar

I can't stress enough that correlation does not automatically imply causation. That's why it's so important to have well validated biomarkers when we talk about the effect of this or that on human health. So many factors can influence overall health and lifespan, and it's impossible to boil differences between two polulations down to one thing.

Re: Starch and sugar

vivian maxine » 12 Sep 2015 08:31 am wrote:That's all very well, doogles but, whenever I hear such stories I want to ask why we outlive these oh-so-healthy ancestors. They never seem to mention that in their reports.

Modern medicine (vaccines, antibiotics, etc).

There is that, yes. I don't know if that is all of it but I'll not quibble. Just one thing. Does that account for lower infant mortality rates?

Re: Starch and sugar

vivian maxine » 12 Sep 2015 08:31 am wrote:That's all very well, doogles but, whenever I hear such stories I want to ask why we outlive these oh-so-healthy ancestors. They never seem to mention that in their reports.

Modern medicine (vaccines, antibiotics, etc).

There is that, yes. I don't know if that is all of it but I'll not quibble. Just one thing. Does that account for lower infant mortality rates?

It might (also lower delivery mortality rates). I can't say I have looked deeply into this though.

Re: Starch and sugar

The leading causes of infant mortality are birth asphyxia, pneumonia, pre-term birth complications, diarrhoea, malaria, measles and malnutrition.[1] Many factors contribute to infant mortality such as the mother's level of education, environmental conditions, and political and medical infrastructure. Improving sanitation, access to clean drinking water, immunization against infectious diseases, and other public health measures could help reduce high rates of infant mortality.

So yes, immunization, sterilization, medication, and interventional medicine (basically components of modern medicine) are big players.

Re: Starch and sugar

Come to think of it, medicines and vaccines doesn't quite hold up in this. Despite all our medicines and vaccines, the researcher was still saying that our ancestors were healthier than we are today. So, he (the researcher) still has a question to answer. If all our medicines and vaccines have contributed to our longer life, those must be keeping us healthier. No?

I'm not even sure of that argument. The only vaccine I ever had - until flu shots came along - was for small pox and I'm a pretty healthy person, all told. In fact - I hope this isn't getting off topic - I have read reports that the increase in allergies and asthma may be because we have so sterilized our lives. As they used to say back in the thirties, "you have to eat a peck of dirt before you die. Let the children get their hands dirty."

No, I'm not recommending eating dirt. It's an old saying full of wisdom. Remember when we used to sterilize the baby bottles? :-)

Re: Starch and sugar

Vivian, the distinction I was trying to make, which seems to have been missed, is between health and longevity. If you are killed by injury and infectious diseases well before your intrinsic health issues (ex diabetes, cholesterolemia, etc) come into play, then you will still be shortlived, despite being physiologically healthier.

Health isn't measured by actual length of life. But rather by risk of death (or impairment) from physiologically-related issues.

So Vaccines and medication can eliminate much of the threat of fatal accidents and infections. But they don't necessarily improve the reading on our internal "health meter".

Re: Starch and sugar

By the way, I didn't say that excessive sanitation is necessarily a good thing. Clearly, one of the biggest health markers is proper immune function. If having insufficient exposure to allergens in infancy impairs immune development and results in under or overactive immune behavior, then it's clearly a bad thing. However, it is a good thing in situations where exposure isn't necessarily contributing to immune development and merely raising the risk of fatal infections (ex after a major injury).

Re: Starch and sugar

I did follow you, Biowizard. I was just adding more to the stew pot. Probably unnecessary "more". You are right that so much enters into it. Hmmmm? Dare I ask then at what age he was deciding our health as related to theirs? And, unless I am remembering wrongly, wasn't the average life span "way back when" only thirty years? As you say, so much enters into it.

So, all I was saying is that those who tell us the ancients were healthier than we are today, do not have a valid conclusion. Do you think they do?

Re: Starch and sugar

And that's where my comment about risk-associated biomarkers comes into play. You don't have to wait for someone to die or be killed to assess some aspect of their overall health. If you have very high LDL/HDL ratio, you're at risk of heart disease and aren't very healthy. If your insulin level is through the roof and your cells still won't take up the glucose in your blood, you have a problem. If your plasma is full of antibodies against your own tissue, you have a problem. If your Tcells and NK cells exhibit low activity and can't defend you against pathogens, you have a problem.

Is a person who doesn't have any of these issues likely to live longer than someone who does (excluding death from fatal accident and infection)? Yes.

Re: Starch and sugar

doogles » September 12th, 2015, 5:13 am wrote:{snip} With whole grain meals, we have to first digest the husks of each grain before our digestive enzymes can break down the ‘flour’ within. We don’t experience high surges of blood glucose with whole grain. We appear to have evolved to handle that type of carbohydrate diet.

{snip} ... we do need a theory to explain why a disease such as Diabetes 2 is associated with so many other tissue failures, eg eye, kidney and other peripheral circulation disorders.

Minor correction regarding 1st snippet: As a rule, we don't eat the husks of cereal grains, because we humans can't digest cellulose. That sort of thing requires the 4 chambered stomach of a ruminant. The husk is normally removed by some combination of threshing and pounding, depending on the variety. I suspect you were thinking of the bran, which is the layer between the endosperm and the husk.

As for snippet 2: I was under the impression that elevated blood glucose, both directly and indirectly, elevates the body's inflammatory response and thereby (among other things) contributes to accelerated damage of tissues and organs with extremely fine capillary structures like the eyes and kidneys.

Re: Starch and sugar

BioWizard » September 12th, 2015, 9:32 am wrote:And that's where my comment about risk-associated biomarkers comes into play. You don't have to wait for someone to die or be killed to assess some aspect of their overall health. If you have very high LDL/HDL ratio, you're at risk of heart disease and aren't very healthy. If your insulin level is through the roof and your cells still won't take up the glucose in your blood, you have a problem. If your plasma is full of antibodies against your own tissue, you have a problem. If your Tcells and NK cells exhibit low activity and can't defend you against pathogens, you have a problem.

Is a person who doesn't have any of these issues likely to live longer than someone who does (excluding death from fatal accident and infection)? Yes.

Re: Starch and sugar

By the way:Does modern medicine reduce infant mortality?Sure it does, as the availability of food does: just compare the statistics from various Countries, where the availability of food and medical care are radically different.

One may be interested in looking at dr. Ignaz Semmelweis' story: he was disparaged by the medical community because he suggested obstetricians washed their hands before helping a mother to deliver, simply based on the observation that in midwives' wards puerperal mortality rates were three times lower than in doctors' wards, and the former did not help mothers to deliver when just coming from the autopsy room...

About those ancient people being healthier than we are, I'd just note en passant that if only a minor fraction of the population manages to reach the age of thirty, then these survivors might well be healthier than we are in the average, but this might simply be related to the fact they have passed a quite tough selection... :°)

Re: Starch and sugar

In any case, nobody necessarily argued that out ancestors were healthier than us. What was suggested, however, is that their diet may have been more conducive of health than a diet that is ultra high in simple sugars, since we didn't evolve to eat that much sugar for the majority of out existence. And that's why very high sugar intake increases certain health risks.

Re: Starch and sugar

BioWizard » September 12th, 2015, 9:32 am wrote:And that's where my comment about risk-associated biomarkers comes into play. You don't have to wait for someone to die or be killed to assess some aspect of their overall health. If you have very high LDL/HDL ratio, you're at risk of heart disease and aren't very healthy. If your insulin level is through the roof and your cells still won't take up the glucose in your blood, you have a problem. If your plasma is full of antibodies against your own tissue, you have a problem. If your Tcells and NK cells exhibit low activity and can't defend you against pathogens, you have a problem.

Is a person who doesn't have any of these issues likely to live longer than someone who does (excluding death from fatal accident and infection)? Yes.